


Cosmopolitan Enthusiasm

by secretbeatheroes



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Character, Canon Era, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Spoilers, alcoholic character, canon era dick jokes, grantaire is the alcoholic, idk - Freeform, it is grantaire, potential smut?, probably some references to sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:46:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2689964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretbeatheroes/pseuds/secretbeatheroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Canon Era fic in which everyone is alive and absurd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cosmopolitan Enthusiasm

The Musain had seen its share of debates over the years. The brightly lit cafe had long been a haunt for students who were drawn by wine and politics. In these days of enlightenment, the fashion of liberalism rose in the middle class and turned the disdain for the bourgeoisie into a bourgeois affair.

For Courfeyrac, it was not the fashion of liberalism, but rather the liberalism of fashion that had him in arms that afternoon. His usually sunny disposition was spoiled, a frown marring his pleasant face. He entered the cafe, muttering darkly to himself. 

“Damn Montparnasse and his damned cane,” he said blackly as he took his place between Marius and Jehan. Joly, who was peering worriedly at the underside of his eyelid in the mirror, frowned to his own cane defensively. Bossuet patted his knee reassuringly.

“Do not damn the cane for the offense you take with its owner,” he replied, “as it cannot help but belong to the thief who stole it, possessing no will or force of its own.”

Courfeyrac began to launch into his story, when Grantaire spoke up suddenly. “You make an excellent point, Aigle,” he said. His eyes flickered to where Enjolras sat, listening to Feuilly. “I have found you a new concern, my abased friends!” he continued, raising his voice, “the oppression of material objects, terrorised by a material society! Were I a Diogenes, I would cast off even my barrel and release a rain of judgement upon the canes and carriages of the bourgeoisie! The rights of wristwatches and waistcoats would stir even the wooden heart of the hardest table or chair! But what should we do for modesty without clothing? Think, perhaps, of Zeus clothing himself in vanity. I have little to be vain of, and cannot clothe myself in vanity-- to say I am vain would be to say I am in vain. In vain in what? In life, in action, in inactions. I am vain as Joly, who spends his life in front of the hypochondriacal mirror checking his tongue. Alas! My tongue goes unchecked and I am a poor Echo, babbling to all the world until I incur the wrath of a god. And what a God he is, and so I drink. And look! By my seat on this object of oppression, I am the oppressor. I cast myself from my throne of despotism!” he declared, lurching from his chair onto the floor and beginning to untie his cravat. Enjolras glanced over to him in disdain, and Grantaire beamed.

“His unchecked tongue,” said Courfeyrac wryly, “makes it hard to tell one’s story.”

“Easy my friend,” laughed Bahorel as he hoisted the sodden philosopher back into his chair. “Perhaps you should first free your absinthe.”

“To France,” Grantaire agreed, and drank.

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” began Bahorel, but he was interrupted by Courfeyrac, who was moaning loudly, to Marius’ obvious distress. 

“What of this cane?” asked Jehan amicably, closing his folio. Revived, Courfeyrac launched into his story.

“It’s an ugly thing,” he began, “with some sort of secret. Today I was speaking with a feathery little jade by the Corinthe when the thief arrives, tapping his cane with something up his nose to change his appearance-- I only recognized him by the dark locks and red blouse, having run into him before with Gavroche. He’s a clever man, slinky and scheming as a cat. He bows to the lady, and draws her aside to show some devilish sort of mechanism in the tip. She laughs, takes his arm, and leaves me quite despondent.” Courfeyrac turned to Jehan. “So what say you, Prouvaire, should I change my nose or get a bigger stick?”

“The length of the staff would explain why M. Courfeyrac never entertains the same woman twice,” quipped Bahorel. Combeferre, looking up from his papers, merely smiled and shook his head. 

“I know that cane,” interrupted Gavroche, “and it ain’t just a staff, it’s a gendarme, lest he run the wrong side of the bobbies.”

The students turned to where the gamin perched by Bahorel, stealing a sip of wine. “What are you doing here?” asked Courfeyrac. Gavroche merely shrugged, stealing a mouthful of bread from Marius. Courfeyrac flipped a coin at him, and he caught it deftly.

“The devil,” laughed Courfeyrac. “To so crafty a device I will gracefully give up the wench, though I would have liked her for my collection. But what ruffles your feathers, Marius?”

Pontmercy, who flushed a deeper red, fidgeted with the frayed hem of his coat. “I only wondered,” he explained, “of the poor woman’s safety. You call this man a criminal--”

“A thief, perhaps, but a better friend to womankind than M. Courfeyrac,” inserted Combeferre, eyeing his friend disapprovingly, “if he takes the time to woo rather than solicit.”

“I woo,” argued Courfeyrac.

“Why does it concern you where Montparnasse sticks his pin?” asked Bossuet with a wicked grin. Joly swatted his arm.

“Aigle de Meaux,” Coursqueakedeplied, “I only wish that it was my pin to find place in such a sheath.”

Combeferre cleared his throat, tapping Enjolras on the shoulder. “I believe this would be a good time to mention what we had discussed,” he said.

“Thank you, citizen Combeferre,” Enjolras began. He stood, and the room fell silent. If any had bothered to look at Grantaire in that moment, they would have seen the beautification cast upon this Pylades by the words of his Orestes. As it was, he was left to ruminate in peace. All eyes were on Enjolras. 

“Friends,” said the leader. He leaned forward on his elbows, curls falling in disarray around his face. “There is still much to be done. To succeed, we need not only the support, but the means. Guns and gunpowder, must be collected. Lamarque’s health is failing. The people grow angrier daily, and the time to act must be soon. We must be prepared.”

“If the people grow daily angrier,” murmured Grantaire to Bahorel, “should we leave them to ferment a few months longer until their anger is of a finer quality?”

“If we aged our revolution with the lack of patience with which you age your wine,” responded Courfeyrac, “there would be no revolution.”

“Wine and cheese better with age,” agreed Bossuet, “but like revolution, allowing fruit to ripen too long leaves one without fruit.”

“Without fruit today, perhaps,” said Combeferre, “but if you plant and cultivate the seeds, you will have more fruit than you began with when the season turns over. Consume the flesh immediately, and you only have served your short term needs.”

“If I starve today, and you give me the choice of an apple now or an apple tree in a year, I will take the apple,” Feuilly responded. “People cannot always be expected to think past their empty bellies for the far reaching effects of their choices. You say, ‘give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life.’ Perhaps the lack is not in the education, necessary basis that it is, but also in the lack of a fishing rod. Ask the people what they need, and provide them with fish today and tools tomorrow. Res Publica, the public affair, is created pro populo. We have among us democrats, Bonapartists, democratic Bonapartists,” at this Marius blushed, “yet the mother Republic is mother of the common era, in a society too big for every voice to speak in turn. Given one voice, the people’s needs will be heard, and then you will have time to grow your trees.”

“Kekcaa?” asked Gavroche “Qu'est que c’est que cela a?” he amended, and continued, “if I eat an apple today and don’t eat the seeds, I can have my fruit and eat it too.”

“Then your problem is not the seeds,” said Jehan, “but where you plant them. I say, why do my flowers die in winter? Perhaps it is the season. Persephone descends to the dead, and Demeter becomes despondent. Winter ensues and my flowers die. This is not a fault of the mine, or of the seeds, but of the conditions. I say, why does my soul become cramped within the confines of my apartment? Why does it not soar as the spirit of Icarus, ascending to the sun? I do not fall, because I do not fly. I do not fly, because a soul confined cannot grow outside container. As tiny Adonis in his prison, beauty is confined to the box in which we place it, and cannot grow without proper room. Just as the trapped soul, a tree planted in a window box can grow no bigger than the window box. This djinn of life, trapped, grants no wishes. Release it from the bottle, it unleashes wonders of its own accord.”

“Prouvaire has a point,” agreed Combeferre, “to grow a revolution, you need a well built foundation.”

“Our foundation lies in the failure of past revolution and the cries of a silenced people,” Enjolras said. “Though I think,” he added, surveying his comrades with pride, “you will not find the people so silenced.”

The debate continued as wine filled Grantaire’s ears with cotton. 

“Just as Gaia swallows her young when their purpose is served,” he muttered, “so does the Patria consume her heroes.”

“What was that, Capital R?” asked Bossuet, and Grantaire beamed at him. 

“Nothing, Eagle,” he replied jovially, “but I have been intending all night to inquire after your Mamselle Musichetta. Jollly here has been coy, but I was wondering if she has the same habit as a woman I met by the Bastille the other night. She has this device with her tongue, where she--”

“Hush,” reprimanded Bahorel, “poor Pontmercy looks as though he would faint.”

“True,” said Grantaire, “for to think of women is to think of his woman, and to think of his woman sullies the purity of his infant love.”

“Marius knows only three women,” said Courfeyrac, “and sees but one.”

“Ah,” replied Grantaire, “this is the problem with revolution. Young men, wasted in their prime, chasing ideals rather than skirts. The horrors of the enlightenment wound my romantic soul.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras sighed, “what is your purpose here?”

“Videre et tacere,” Grantaire said, “therefore video et taceo.”

“You are doing a very bad job of it, then.”

“Videre et sequi,” Grantaire amended, and Enjolras frowned.

“Follow whom?” he asked.

“You.”

“Me? You do not listen to me.”

“I listen.”

“You do not believe.”

“I believe in you.”

Quietly, Combeferre turned to the assembled students. “Joly,” he said, “should we take our leave? I noticed something odd with the connective tissues of a cadaver we saw today” 

Launching into debate, Joly left with Bossuet in tow. Feuilly and Bahorel went with Jehan, and Marius started home with Courfeyrac. Neither Grantaire nor Enjolras saw them go. 

“Why do you believe in me?” asked Enjolras. Grantaire laughed, a hollow sound.

“Just as blind Tiresias can turn his face to the sun,” he replied, “so can the pessimist indulge himself upon the presence of optimism, though it burns him. Patroclus does not leave the side of his Achilles. You say I do not believe. I believe in you, Apollo, and will follow you thusly. Now leave me be, absinthe is heavy with the Lethe, and I must sleep.”

Enjolras hesitated, then sighed. “This is not your Corinthe, you drunken fool,” he said with chagrin, “and I cannot leave you here. Come, I will take you home.”

Grantaire blinked up at him, uncomprehending. “Ha! What a dream I am having,” he said to himself. With great effort, he stood. The world spun nauseatingly, black spots dancing before his dulled eyes. He gripped Enjolras’ arm. “Lead the way, sweet will o’ the wisp!” he cried, “tomorrow I am like to end up in a ditch, but tonight I will enjoy such pleasant hallucinations!”

Rolling his eyes, Enjolras helped Grantaire to his feet. “Where do you live?” he asked, his breathing labored as Grantaire leaned on him. 

“There,” said Grantaire, pointing in the general direction of nowhere. Enjolras sighed. 

“We are facing away from the Musain. In which direction do we turn?”

“Right,” Grantaire replied softly. In his drunken fog, he tried to adjust himself so he would not weigh so heavily on Enjolras. 

“Good,” Enjolras coaxed, “now where do we turn next?”

“Er, three buildings and then a left,” Grantaire said as they stumbled along, the tall golden man bowing like a willow under the weight of his charge. They made an endearing couple, swaying and odd as they were. Jehan would have wept at the juxtaposition of light and dark they made. Enjolras did not notice. He thought only of the warmth of the person leaning on him, and how odd it was to feel the breathing of another living thing. Grantaire felt his own weight press against Enjolras, and cringed. He wracked his tired mind for a way to get Enjolras to stay with him a little longer, perhaps convince him of his use.

“This is it,” he said, interrupting the comfortable silence. They stood before a well kept building, small, but not overly shabby. Grantaire fumbled with his key a moment, before Enjolras reached to take it from him.

“Here,” he began, and their hands brushed. Grantaire blinked, dazed, and Enjolras caught his breath. Feeling silly, he took the key and unlocked the door.

The interior was entirely unlike what Enjolras had expected. The room was small, but well kept, with simple furnishings and books scattered throughout. The expected wine bottles were lined up neatly in various corners, empty behind the full. Boxing gloves hung up on the wall, and paints sat abandoned under the bed. 

“You paint?” asked Enjolras as Grantaire lurched towards a chair. He ran a hand through his dark curls.

“Oh, long ago,” he said dismissively. “I have lost my taste for art.” He looked to Enjolras, who was drifting by the door, and waved to a chair.

“Sit with me?” he asked tentatively. Enjolras hesitated, then sat.

“Tell me, how does one lose a taste in art?” Enjolras said. “I cannot imagine losing taste for something I love.”

“No, you are a creature of absolutes,” said Grantaire, “but I am not so constant. I grew to love something else. Nothing beside could do it justice.”

“What did you grow to love?”

You, Grantaire thought. “Wine,” he said, sardonically, “after which nothing else mattered.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I will be updating every two weeks. If all goes according to plan. Thanks!  
> On the references and the languages, the title of the work comes from the Brick description of Feuilly. "Kekcaa" is old french slang for "Qu'est que c’est que cela" a which means "what's the matter with that". "Video et Taceo" means "I see and say nothing" and is a play off the English monarchy to take a jab at Enjolras' views. "Sequi" means "to follow". If there are any history/mythology questions, feel free to ask.


End file.
